Implement an actual shuffle function

[RoninTheOrigina]

Yes, you read that right.  The "shuffle" function in Spotify is nothing more than a randomizer.  There's a difference?  YES.

RANDOM - Play one song.  The next song can be ANY song in your playlist.  Including the one you just listened to.  Though I've never had this specifically happen, I literally just heard the same song that I heard 2 songs ago.  This is how Spotify's "shuffle" currently functions.

SHUFFLE - Take your entire list, shuffle them (like cards), and play the first song in the shuffle.  Once finished, move that song off the pile.  Once the pile is depleted, shuffle the deck again and start over (maybe pop a message up).

I know enough about programming (not much) to know that shuffling is probably a bit harder than random, but come on.  I may be in the minority, but I don't have a lot of little playlists.  I have one list with nearly a thousand songs in it, because I like all the music, and am rarely not in the mood for one of those songs.  But what I can't stand is hearing the same song over and over again.  I think there may even be songs in my list I haven't heard yet, while I've heard others 4-5 times.

I know it may not matter much, but I would probably lay down the money for at least a year subscription if this feature was implemented.

EDIT: Another user pointed out that I can see what all is queued up in my shuffle by clicking the Play Queue link, and that Spotify supposedly sets up a rolling shuffle of 50 songs.  It would be nice if this range could be expanded to say 50-100% of your playlist.

EDIT 4/6/12: I just dealt with the same song 16 tracks later.  The song played the first time yesterday afternoon.  I went home, listened for a bit on my home PC (just a few songs), then started listening again this morning.  If the list recycles itself after a day, or if you log in from another computer, I see that as an area for improvement.

[Coolin82]

Great website. Will there be a mobile app at some point? Also could you
add a way to refresh the radio playlist option after it reaches the end
to chose new songs or is this not possible?

[Tobraham]

I may consider a mobile app at some point. I'm still experimenting with different ways to utilize Spotify's API.

I will look into having the page refresh to the radio playlist option for you.

[rednblu]

If you run that >> Perfect Spotify shuffle function << in the WebBrowser of your iPhone, aren't the perfectly shuffled playlists still created to the top of the list of all playlists-- just from running the page in the WebBrowser?

So it seems to me that we already have a mobile app-- You just "install" the app by creating a "Favorite" to go directly to that Perfect Spotify shuffle function in the WebBrowser of your iPhone.  Would that be right?

[kcpz]

@Tobraham

That would work, but I want complete control over what gets shuffled. This doesn't do it for me, sadly.

[Tobraham]

@kcpz

What sort of extra control would you like to see?

[Tobraham]

@rednblu

That is correct. I believe there are is some extra functionality you can
get if you build an actual application for iOS and Android that you
can't get by using just the Spotify web API. So in the long run,
building a real app would be beneficial.

[rednblu]

__________

      I want complete control over what gets shuffled . . .
__________

Amen!
So do I.

>> At this link << is how I completely control what I shuffle.

Is that appropriate-- will that work, @Tobraham? Thanks.

The method at that link lets me have all kinds of duplicate fragments of playlists and experimental music lists in my working space-- depending on what I want to construct for my next "show". And I would not want those "fragments of playlists" necessarily to be processed into my "Perfectly Shuffled" playlists-- so that method at that link lets me completely control what gets shuffled.

[kcpz]

@Tobraham 

I just want Spotify to implement a more effective shuffle tracking algorithm that actually shuffles the whole playlist and stores that somewhere. It can literally be a file on the device being used. I don't really want to randomly shuffle a playlist everytime I want to use it because I listen to a lot of music...

http://www.last.fm/user/kcpz

Specifically, the playist is question is: It's what I like, man. from me(kcpz). I just want to be able to listen to that on repeat and always have a new, random generated playlist when finishing the stack of songs in the queue.

[Tobraham]

@kcpz

Well, there is a Spotify API feature that allows you to move a song from
one position of an existing playlist to another. Using that, I could in
theory shuffle your existing list for you at the click of a button. You
would then listen to it straight down from top to bottom (turning
shuffle off). When you get to the end you could click my button again
and it would reshuffle it for you and you could listen to it again.

My experience so far with this approach is that if you have an artist
that appears a lot more frequently than most, you will tend to get a
large chunk of their songs bunched up at the end because my shuffler
tries very hard to keep an artist from repeating too often so it has a
hard coded wait time before it is allowed to pick that artist again.

For example, if an artist appears 20 times in a playlist of 300 songs,
that means a perfect spread would be to not play that artist more than
once every 15 songs (20 x 15 = 300).

So I coded the shuffler to figure out which artist appears the most and
divide that song count into the total number of songs in the playlist
and that gives me a minimum acceptable play count for a more even
spread. The problem is the shuffler doesn't HAVE to play that artist
every 15 songs, it only makes sure it WON"T play the artist any sooner
than that. So over time, that artist tends to pile up closer to the end
of the playlist and sometimes the end will be nothing but that artist.
It all really depends on how many songs you have and what percentage
that artist makes up.

I then tried some tricky math that allows the artist to play more
frequently but it's still tricky. I think I ended up making rule a
multiple of 3. So using the first example, Artist A appears 20 times in
a 300 song playlist. 300 / 20 = 15. Well I took that 15 and divided it
by 3, so I will allow the shuffler to play the artist every 5 songs.
Most of the time it still doesn't choose it immediately after 5 songs
have been selected anyway, so it doesn't negatively impact the song
selection, but at times it always has the potential to do so. This
allows it the option to play the artist sooner and sometimes will, but
over the lengh5t of the entire playlist you see fewer instances of that
artist piling up at the end. It's a mathematical crapshoot once you get
into playing with the numbers like that to keep the pileup from
happening at the end.

---------------
You wrote:
"I just want to be able to listen to that on repeat and always have a
new, random generated playlist when finishing the stack of songs in the
queue."

[kcpz]

@Tobraham Will this work on my phone as well?